


What I'm not saying

by dodger_chan



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: 1980s, Actively ignoring HIV/AIDS, Because it's the 80s, Gen, HIV/AIDS, No Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:51:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7411951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodger_chan/pseuds/dodger_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something has been bothering Peter. Hank isn't thinking about what that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I'm not saying

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wanted to write a story that firmly place X-Men: Apocalypse in the 80s. Apparently nothing says 80s to me like the appalling non-reaction to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. I wasn't sure how to warn for this, so if you think I need more specific tags, please let me know and I'll add them.

     Peter's leg healed fast. It wasn't Logan's miraculous, near instantaneous healing, but two weeks after our near miss with Apocalypse his x-rays looked like a bone that had been broken six weeks earlier. I'd assumed Peter would be cheered by the thought of the cast coming off sooner. When I told him, he frowned at me.  
     “So, this is a mutation thing?” He asked, slouching down in his seat, drumming his fingers on the table. “It makes me heal faster?”  
     “It seems to be so.”  
     “Would it mean I'm less likely to get sick, too?”  
     “I'm not sure,” I considered. “I would expect your immune system to work at a faster level, so you should develop antibodies earlier. That would make your illnesses shorter and less severe.”  
     “But I'm not less likely to catch something in the first place?”  
     “Not from anything I've seen.” I took the x-rays down and turned to put them away. “I suspect, actually, that if you developed cancer or an autoimmune condition it would progress faster than in most people.”  
     I turned back to the room, but Peter had taken off at some point during my last sentence.

     “I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.” Erik's voice carried just outside the open kitchen door. I stepped back from the doorway. If this was Peter finally telling Erik about their relationship, I did not want to interrupt.  
     “Sorry. I know it isn't the same thing, at all, really. It's just, I mean, everyone else was dying and you, well, you weren't,” Peter's voice trailed off. It wasn't the conversation I had been expecting. I knew I should turn around and go back to my lab, but I waited.  
     “At the time, Shaw kept me isolated from the other prisoners. I didn't know the scope of the deaths. In retrospect, there was enough information that I could have put it together.” Erik paused. “I chose not to.”  
     I couldn't tell if the soft snort that followed was Peter's or Erik's. If it was Peter, I couldn't imagine Erik remaining in the dark about his son much longer.  
     “What about after? Once you understood?” Peter was probably pacing around the kitchen. Even at his most relaxed he was never totally still.  
     “There's no understanding death on that scale, Peter. But once I knew what had been done, I focused my efforts on killing those responsible. I'm sorry, I know that doesn't help-”  
     “Hey, Professor.” I jumped at Jubilee's voice behind me. “Were you planning on grabbing a snack, too?”  
     “Um, yes.” I tried to set my face into its least 'I've been eavesdropping' expression before entering the kitchen. 

     Peter had a tendency to show up at the very last second or just after it. I suspected that if he was in the mansion, he didn’t leave his room for whichever training location Raven had selected until the time he was supposed to be there. The days he spent somewhere else, his timing was only a little better. Those were also the days he seemed more subdued. I figured he spent those days with Erik, but I avoided asking. If I didn’t know, I couldn’t give him advice that he would ignore.  
     “And how is Erik doing?” Raven did not share my opinion on non-involvement. She had caught Peter playing a game of ping pong with himself in what Charles had dubbed the recreation room.  
     “Haven’t seen him since he left.” Peter didn’t stop playing, so his voice had an odd vibrating sound. Most people tried to make Peter stop for conversations, but Raven had never seemed to mind talking to a blur.  
     “You weren’t meeting with him yesterday?” Peter had been gone all day, missed a training session.  
     “Yesterday I was at a funeral in New York City.”  
     “No good. You used that excuse last week, remember?” Alex’s little brother, Scott, joined the conversation. I hadn’t noticed him reading on the sofa. “You’ve got to vary your excuses.”  
     “Last week I was visiting a friend in the hospital,” Peter corrected. “Two weeks ago I went to a funeral.”  
     “The point still stands.” He closed the book he'd been reading. “Two funerals in less than a month? No one’s gonna believe you know that many dead people.”  
     A ping pong ball bounced onto the floor and rolled out the door. Peter was now leaning over the sofa where Alex’s brother was sitting.  
     “I have trouble believing it, too,” Peter said seriously. “But I’ll probably know even more soon.”  
     Scott’s puzzled expression was almost identical to Alex’s. My own expression probably mirrored Raven’s look of alarm because Peter was looking thoughtful. Peter and careful consideration was usually a bad combination.  
     “Maybe this isn’t the best time-” Raven starts. Peter interrupts.  
     “It never is, is it?” And he’s out the door and probably off the grounds before Raven can finish her sentence.

      “The Professor thinks I shouldn’t go back to New York anymore.” Peter had taken to visiting me in my lab while I worked. I could hear him tapping his foot to the beat of the music playing softly in the background. I'd found that while Peter had trouble maintaining an average human speed he could use music as a baseline. Conversation worked as well, but he sometimes lost track if you didn't respond quickly enough. “He said it was just making my life more stressful.”  
     “Isn't it?” I was glad Charles had said something. Each time Peter went to New York he came back a little sadder. The students were starting to notice.  
     “Almost half my friends are either dead or dying. And the rest are terrified. I can't avoid that here any more than I could at my mother's.” Peter sighed. “It's not my mental health he's worried about. He thinks I'm gonna bring the plague here.”  
     For at least a full second, I froze. Hopefully, Peter did not walk around my desk to check on me, because I don't think he would have liked the fear in my eyes.  
     “But you're not sick, right?” I tried to keep my voice level.  
     “I don't have any symptoms, but it's not like there's a way to be sure. Can't test for it until they figure out what it is.” The sound of his foot tapping ceased. “I'm not going to be able to stay here much longer, am I?”  
     “All mutants are welcome here, Peter. Charles -” I didn't finish explaining what Charles was trying to do with his school. I turned to face Peter, to make sure he didn't run off like he so often did during conversations he didn't care for. Instead of the empty room and open door I half expected, Peter was still sitting in the chair; leaning forward, elbows on his legs, head down. He wasn't moving at all.  
     “The X-men exist because the Professor knows we can't just ignore the outside world. But hundreds of people, probably thousands soon? That's a lot of deaths to just ignore. And they aren't all strangers to me. These are guys I know, guys I've hooked up with, guys I've dated. But if I talk about it, I get 'not in front of the children' or 'maybe you shouldn't be going to New York.' It isn't right and I can't keep playing along.”  
     “It's not like there's anything we can do,” I started to say. But I blinked and suddenly Peter was standing directly in front of me, practically leaning into my space.  
     “Yeah, it's been made clear to me exactly what you are capable of doing.”  
     The next time I blinked, he was gone.


End file.
